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| Bridget Kennedy in her workshop, 2016 |
Sydney based artist Bridget Kennedy has a background as a painter and contemporary jeweller. She works with diverse, non-precious and organic materials combined with traditionally precious materials. Her exhibition work is an ongoing enquiry into environmental fragility, impermanence, choice, social expectations and value. Bridget's emphasis on materials and exploration allows the physical act of making to partly drive the outcome.
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Bridget Kennedy, It’s as simple as…white, 2015,
beeswax, pigments, handspung co0on cord
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Bridget began studying painting in the 1980s, before diverting a corporate career and then returning to pursue her art practice full time in 2003, completing an Advanced Diploma in Jewellery and Object Design in 2005. The following year she was the inaugural recipient of the Enmore Design Centre's Jewellery and Object Design Award. In 2008 Bridget co-founded Studio 20/17, a contemporary jewellery gallery and workshop based in Waterloo, Sydney. She has been an active member of Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia (JMGA) over the past five years, holding various roles of treasurer and secretary. Last year Bridget co-ordinated the 2015 JMGA conference held at Sydney College of the Arts. She has been a finalist in the Toowoomba Contemporary Wearables Biennial Jewellery Award and was awarded first prize in Graduate Metal X. In 2010 she was artist-in-residence at Bundanoon Trust NSW and at Hill End NSW in 2015. Bridget has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in group shows around Australia and in Thailand, New Zealand, USA, and Japan. In 2015 she completed her Masters in Studio Art at Sydney College of the Arts.
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Bridget Kennedy, choice mate, 2015, beeswax, pigments, soil, found objects,
gold leaf, fools gold and an ounce of gold
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I am intrigued by the social interstice between audience and object and the potential of the participatory object to act as a mediating role in developing human relationships and social action, specifically in the area of social and environmental impacts of resource usage and sustainability. My practice aims to explore this through ideas of impermanence and materiality, the cultural and material value we attach to objects and the potential for the object to navigate both the public and private spheres. I am interested in using the residency to take these ideas further. My time at Gunyah would be spent reading various theoretical texts and consolidating the research areas that I’ve been exposed to recently. Time would be spent sitting quietly in the bush, listening and observing. I would use the time to explore the local environment and make silicone moulds of various flora in the local environment to be later used for creating beeswax elements of a larger work.
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Bridget Kennedy, in memory of bees, 2012, beeswax, 18ct gold
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To find out more about Bridget's practice and see more of her work please go to her website bridgetkennedy.com.au
